The headline read: “Wisner Park Square Proposed by Engineer.” With the new Mark Twain hotel in 1929 came an idea for progress in downtown Elmira.

Although the Jan. 20, 1928, headline clearly said “square,” the idea was for what we today call a traffic circle right in the middle of Main Street between both sides of Wisner Park.

The idea left the Park Church and First Baptist Church with 25 feet of sidewalk and grass on their sides. Diagonal parking spaces were allowed next to the churches. The east and west halves of Wisner Park would be united in a central park inside the traffic square.

This traffic square was not a new idea, as it was first proposed in 1881 by David B. Hill, resident and soon-to-be New York governor. Around 1900, it was again proposed by Frank Tripp, of Gannett fame.

The 1928 idea was presented to the churches, and their initial reaction was “one of tentative approval … (especially) if the project is carried completely through and not handled piecemeal.”

The altered contour of the park would “not necessitate any change in the location of the Thomas K. Beecher statue on the west or the Exedra Memorial on the east. The sidewalks would be diagonally across the square joining at a “circular plot in the center of the park where a monument might eventually be located.” Additional shrubs would add to the attractive appearance of the square.

The project was estimated at around $45,000. The engineer billed the project as “looking north from the site of the [new] hotel would be seen the three magnificent church edifices, and the stately old Langdon residence surrounding the square … (and from the square could be seen) the lofty spire of St. Patrick’s church.”

Too much public outcry put the kibosh on that idea. The deacons of First Baptist Church eventually said, “We all want a new hotel, and we believe it can be had without mutilating Wisner Park.” Instead what happened was that Gray Street was widened between College Avenue and Lake Street. This helped ease the traffic congestion in that area.

I found another Star-Gazette headline dated Jan. 28, 1959: “Suggest Wisner Park Underground Parking.” Now that is the kind of article that catches one’s eye. It reported a proposal for “a subterranean multi-level parking garage be built UNDER Wisner Park.”

The suggestion came from D. James Shay, of the Elmira Fire Department. His idea would have accommodated 500 automobiles on two levels below ground, with continued use of Wisner Park above. Shay got the idea while visiting Detroit earlier in that year. It was in 1959 that the concept of building a parking garage in Elmira first started, as Buffalo was having “astonishing success” with the three it had recently built.

The Elmira Traffic Committee commended Shay for his vision and gave the idea careful consideration. Shay’s idea was 212,000 square feet under Main Street and under both sides of Wisner Park. Entrances and exits would be at Church and Gray streets, with restrooms at both ends.

The idea’s only concern was that Wisner Park had originally been a cemetery, and there might be legal problems with it.

Neither revolutionary ideas of the traffic circle or the subterranean parking garage in that location came to pass. Elmira eventually built two above-ground parking garages, and soon, we will be getting our traffic circle.